Author Event! Kate Baer & Rebecca Serle
[0:00]I think about maybe three years ago.
[0:02]I was asked to moderate, and I didn't know her personally,
[0:05]so it's always a toss-up when you meet another author
[0:07]of what their vibe is going to be.
[0:08]And within the first two minutes, I was like,
[0:10]oh, I love her.
[0:11]So I was so excited that she agreed to come here.
[0:14]She has a little baby that she left to be here tonight,
[0:17]so I'm so grateful to her, and I want to say one more thing
[0:21]that I say before all my events.
[0:23]Jeff Bezos doesn't give a shit about authors,
[0:25]but places like Sibby's books give authors like me
[0:29]and Rebecca Ahome.
[0:30]So thank you so much for having us.
[0:32]Thank you.
[0:34]Oh, I'm so happy to be with you tonight,
[0:37]and I'm so happy to be with all of you
[0:40]to celebrate this incredibly beautiful collection
[0:42]by an even more incredible and beautiful woman.
[0:46]I really hate to read from my own books,
[0:48]but I love to read from yours.
[0:49]I'm going to start by sharing something with you all.
[0:52]Hold on.
[0:55]We are born dying, which is one way to look at it.
[0:58]Another is to wake up knowing we are made of impossible things.
[1:03]Crystal caves, singing dunes, dark matter held in mortal hope.
[1:08]It's true time has a way of making lists and ledgers.
[1:12]You say you want to garden, beds of lavender, and daffodils.
[1:16]You say we have a lifetime.
[1:18]Love were in our lifetime.
[1:21]How about now?
[1:24]Oh, my God.
[1:25]Every time I read anything of yours,
[1:27]it makes me cheer up.
[1:29]I want to know, why is this the title poem?
[1:33]Why how about now?
[1:35]I think, well, I wrote the whole book,
[1:40]and I needed to close with what I wanted to say that whole time.
[1:45]And so I wrote the poem and then titled it
[1:46]how about now to kind of give a closer.
[1:50]I have a closing song.
[1:52]I write most of my poetry that way.
[1:54]I write the poem and then title it.
[1:56]And so that's kind of how that came together.
[1:58]But yeah, this is my first book that I titled first all together.
[2:04]So how about now is the title before I wrote any poetry for it.
[2:08]And I knew I wanted to have a poem in there with that same title.
[2:11]I love it so much.
[2:13]I've said this to you before, but I
[2:15]feel like you have a way of writing makes the reader look
[2:19]at a line or poem a passage and say like, yes,
[2:23]you are writing in a way that makes us all recognize something
[2:28]and see something.
[2:29]And I feel like poetry is so specific.
[2:33]And I think a lot as a writer
[2:35]about how the specific is the universal.
[2:38]And I'm wondering if you can talk about that a little bit.
[2:40]I think that it is this sort of ironic paradox
[2:42]of writing that the more specific you
[2:45]can make something to your own experience,
[2:47]the more universally it will be felt for us.
[2:51]And I'm also, I'm tagging on another question to that,
[2:54]which is that your poetry is in first person.
[2:57]And I'm wondering, is the I you?
[3:01]Like when you write, is it the I you?
[3:03]Yeah.
[3:04]We were just talking about where my book is shelved in bookstores.
[3:08]And it's shelved in the fiction section, which I love
[3:12]because I can write whatever I want.
[3:14]And I can say, you know what, it's not true.
[3:17]But with all my books, it's so personal that I
[3:19]is always me, I'll tell you guys that it's always me.
[3:23]And it's always been personal.
[3:24]And I think that really helps connect to readers
[3:27]because they know that what I'm saying is true.
[3:31]And what I do believe in what is really happening in my life.
[3:34]So yeah, the I is definitely me.
[3:37]And I'm glad that it can be a mirror.
[3:39]That's that's the goal is for people to read it.
[3:41]I get messages all the time.
[3:43]What does this poem mean?
[3:44]I never answer.
[3:45]And I say, what do you think it means?
[3:47]It's whatever it means to you.
[3:50]A lot of my poems are about motherhood,
[3:51]but I think you don't have to be a mother to connect to them.
[3:56]That maternalist is in all of us in some way.
[3:59]We mother ourselves.
[4:01]We mother our friends.
[4:03]And so I hope that it's a mirror,
[4:06]even though it is certainly about me.
[4:09]Well, it's really interesting you say that because I was
[4:11]having a conversation with a friend of mine.
[4:14]My single doesn't have children.
[4:18]And I was saying to her, like, oh, my god, this collection,
[4:20]it really just feels like it's about motherhood.
[4:22]And she was like, it's so interesting.
[4:23]Because for me, the collection really feels
[4:25]like it's about sisterhood.
[4:26]And I was saying how beautiful that is
[4:29]that we all really take what it is that we need from your work.
[4:34]And you and I were texting, I think,
[4:36]a couple of months back if I was lucky enough
[4:38]to get an advanced copy of this, but there's a poem in there
[4:40]that talks about the day your child was born.
[4:43]And maybe not being the happiest day of your life.
[4:45]And I was saying to Kate, like, what do I do?
[4:47]It wasn't for sure.
[4:48]And like, it was a terrible actually.
[4:50]Like, I had this crazy emergency station section.
[4:52]I was like, do I lie to her someday?
[4:54]And, but I feel like there's all these, like,
[4:56]just micro moments of truth that you prefer.
[5:00]And so I'm wondering also I'm not a poet and I would assume that there are some people in this audience who are not poets either.
[5:08]And I'm curious how it is that you like build a collection when you sit down to think about what you want to write.
[5:14]Like how does it come together for you? Is there a poem that presents us all first? Is it an idea? How does it begin?
[5:22]It begins by just sitting down and throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.
[5:28]This book was maybe triple the length in the first draft. And as you know, so much gets cut.
[5:34]And so it kind of takes a shape eventually when I see what's coming out.
[5:39]I have never sat down and written a book of poetry and thought, these are the themes I want to write about.
[5:44]It's always just been what has appeared, what's happening in my own life.
[5:48]Which I think is really obvious mostly because it's always every book is about friendship. Every book is about motherhood.
[5:55]Every book has things about marriage because that's what that's who I am. That's part of my life.
[6:01]And in this book there's a lot about midlife because I turned 40 and was facing a lot of things about turning 40.
[6:08]And so yeah, I didn't mean for that to happen but that kind of is what happens because that was what was happening in my life.
[6:15]How many poems would you say like and you don't have to tell us like specifically how many but like what's the percentage of the poems that you write that end up in a collection and also then do some poems that maybe don't end up in this collection will they will we see them later on.
[6:30]I think so.
[6:31]Okay. Yeah. Usually they don't survive.
[6:34]I have a boulder in my hard drive called poetry grave and I put a lot I put a lot in there. I've never opened it once, but it's so hard to kill your darlings.
[6:44]Yeah. And so I put them in there to tell myself you can always take them back out but I never I've never done that.
[6:51]I certainly have started poems that I maybe started for what kind of woman and then didn't they weren't finished until now.
[6:59]So I probably probably a hundred different poems that I didn't finish for this one that might be finished later because I'm not quite sure where they're going.
[7:08]So yeah, I I usually try especially in like second and third drafts.
[7:14]I think I hope I can keep 50% of these 50% yeah.
[7:18]Yeah. So interesting.
[7:19]By the way, poetry, I think would be an amazing title for a collection and also we would all love to read those.
[7:24]Yeah.
[7:25]Maybe you want to publish that.
[7:26]There's a lot of poems that should not be read because sometimes I write like revenge poems and then I'm like, oh, I can't put that in there.
[7:33]No.
[7:34]We would love to read that.
[7:35]Yeah.
[7:37]I would love to know a little bit about your background and kind of how you came to writing.
[7:44]And I'm always really curious about about this with writers because I feel like there are some people who say like I was born a writer.
[7:51]It's like the word I most closely identify with myself, which is how I feel.
[7:54]And then there are other writers who come to it later and sort of are like I found this thing and I followed the thread.
[7:59]I'm curious about about like your work history and how you got started and how how writing emerged for you.
[8:06]Yeah.
[8:07]Whenever I get asked this question, I'm like, you kind of buckle up.
[8:10]This is a long story.
[8:11]But I will try to keep it super short the shortened version.
[8:16]I've always been a writer ever since I could write around like was writing like eight years old.
[8:23]I'm a huge nostalgia hoarder.
[8:25]So a few years ago, my parents were like, you've got to get all your crap out of the attic and it was like three or four giant boxes of stuff.
[8:33]And in there, I found all my old journals and I found all the poetry I used to write.
[8:38]My eight year old poetry as all about all my dead cats.
[8:42]They just kept getting hit on the road and so they're really bummer poems.
[8:47]Yeah.
[8:48]And then I found all those poetry I wrote when I was 16 and it's so horny.
[8:58]And then the poetry I wrote in college again, horny.
[9:02]And just such bad poetry, but I kind of like confirmed what had always been there.
[9:08]I didn't share a poem with anybody else until I was 35.
[9:13]No.
[9:14]But I'd had this poetry that went back until I was eight years old.
[9:18]And so it was really affirming and I mean kind of funny to read through.
[9:24]There's all sorts of other writing in there to screenwriting, little short stories, attempts at novels.
[9:30]Really fun stuff to look through.
[9:32]But it was like, oh yeah, I've always been, I mean, I know I've always been doing this but to find it was really fun.
[9:38]And I went to a little university in Virginia and majored in English.
[9:43]I started with English education and then got into the classroom and realized,
[9:47]teachers should be paid a million dollars starting salary and it could never be me.
[9:52]I dropped that, that major and graduated with an English degree,
[9:56]which means you can be a dentist office administrative assistant.
[10:00]And I cleaned out the homes of, like, dead hoarders.
[10:03]I had all sorts of wacky jobs.
[10:09]And but always was pursuing writing that whole time.
[10:11]And yeah, what I didn't get published until I was 36 years old.
[10:16]And so it's been a long time, a lot of failure,
[10:19]a lot of submitting work that never got picked up,
[10:22]writing whole novels that never got published.
[10:26]And yeah, I think it's easy to look
[10:29]at writers who've had some success and think,
[10:31]oh, they just sat down and wrote,
[10:32]and then they got what they always wanted.
[10:35]But it was a long time.
[10:37]And I'm just so grateful that the people connected
[10:41]with the poetry, yeah.
[10:42]What, you don't have to answer this.
[10:44]But like, who was the person at 35 that you decided
[10:47]that you wanted to share that poem with?
[10:50]Yeah.
[10:51]So I got into the MFA of my choice
[10:54]the same week my husband got into med school.
[10:57]And then I found out I was pregnant two weeks later.
[11:01]So one of those jobs pays and one of them doesn't.
[11:03]So I stayed home with the kids.
[11:06]We had multiple babies and it was so wonderful.
[11:10]And some of the best years of my life.
[11:13]But I got really born down.
[11:15]I, the last one really did me in.
[11:18]I struggled a lot with postpartum depression.
[11:20]And realized I needed to kind of put a life jacket on
[11:24]and do something for myself.
[11:26]And so I went back to work.
[11:29]To do that, I started to,
[11:31]I picked up a bunch of freelance jobs.
[11:33]One of them was doing editorial work for Rando's.
[11:36]I edited this 900 page Western novel
[11:40]from a man who wrote it in Arizona.
[11:42]It was a love story.
[11:43]And it was really obvious right away
[11:45]that this man had never met a woman.
[11:49]A lot of really bad love scenes.
[11:53]And so yeah, I did that.
[11:56]But that's when I started to really put in the work
[11:59]of writing.
[12:00]It was actually when I was working on a novel
[12:02]while I was working on, sorry, this is so long.
[12:04]I love it.
[12:05]Okay, you guys love it?
[12:06]Yeah, yeah.
[12:07]I was working on that novel and started cheating
[12:09]with poetry, which is really fun.
[12:11]Highly recommend cheating in that way.
[12:14]And I was writing a lot of poetry during that time
[12:18]to do anything but work on this novel.
[12:20]And I thought, what if I just posted this on Instagram?
[12:24]And people really loved it.
[12:25]And my agent took a huge shoot.
[12:28]I had a writing and agent at that time
[12:33]because a few of my pieces, nonfiction pieces
[12:36]had gone viral on Huffington Post.
[12:37]So I had gotten this agent to write this novel.
[12:40]And I said, what if we pitched poetry instead?
[12:42]And she said, well, I don't ever do poetry,
[12:45]but I'll give it a shot.
[12:46]And that's how what kind of woman came into the world.
[12:49]That's incredible.
[12:50]Well, I think it is really amazing
[12:52]because I feel like I see your work now
[12:55]and I'm thinking in this collection in particular
[12:57]about the bridesmaid speech, which is everywhere.
[13:01]Like I see it on TikTok.
[13:02]I see people posting their wedding photos with it.
[13:04]Like collages of their best friends.
[13:06]And I think it is like, it's really incredible
[13:10]how you've reached such a mainstream audience.
[13:14]I think with poetry in a way,
[13:16]you know, people, I feel like not everybody reads poetry.
[13:19]I don't feel like that's like a crazy statement to me.
[13:23]But it's incredible how wildly I feel
[13:26]that you're being read and how much people are connecting
[13:29]with your work.
[13:30]And it's really just fun to see
[13:32]because I know you personally and I adore you.
[13:34]And I feel like I'm just, I'm on some like random algorithm
[13:37]on TikTok and like there's another key poem again.
[13:39]Yeah.
[13:40]And it also just makes me feel good
[13:42]because I feel like there's so much about, you know,
[13:44]Instagram and TikTok that we can rag on.
[13:46]But it is also this wonderful tool of connection in some ways.
[13:49]And so I really, I just enjoy seeing your work
[13:51]be spread that way.
[13:52]I'm wondering how you feel about it too.
[13:54]Yeah.
[13:55]It's a mixed bag.
[13:57]It was really great, especially during the pandemic
[14:00]when we were kind of stuck on our phones.
[14:02]And the algorithm was much different then.
[14:04]So they still favor like static poetry posts.
[14:07]Right now it's a lot harder to see that.
[14:10]So I'm glad you're seeing it.
[14:13]Yeah, I heard that over and over.
[14:15]I never liked poetry until I read yours
[14:17]and I love to be the gateway drug.
[14:19]When people say they don't like poetry,
[14:21]it's, that sounds to me like the same as saying,
[14:25]you know, I just never liked music.
[14:27]There's a poem for everyone.
[14:30]It doesn't have to be mine.
[14:32]You just haven't really heard the right song.
[14:35]There's a poetry account on Instagram called poetry
[14:37]is not a luxury, which is a quote by Audrey Lorde.
[14:41]And they share poems from all eras,
[14:43]all voices, all genders.
[14:45]And oh, you can find something in there.
[14:47]There's some, there's poetry for everyone.
[14:49]And so in that way, I'm so grateful for social media.
[14:53]There's been such a criticism of that.
[14:55]In all arts, comedy, music, writing.
[15:00]This criticism that will now anyone can put out their art and it's like yeah
[15:06]Now you don't have to have a dad who's a finance bro who's helping you get into a backdoor now
[15:11]You can share your work and if it's good people will connect with it
[15:15]So that has been such a wonderful part of social media
[15:19]There's also a lot of bad stuff to and I've never been more aware of the AI slop and the
[15:26]Things were being served that aren't true
[15:28]The hate the vitriol it's it's really also hard and so it's kind of holding those two truths at the same time
[15:35]Yeah, yeah, I feel like there are books that we all
[15:39]wait for
[15:41]And that feel like very precious when they come into our hands and this collection certainly is one for me and I think for you and
[15:51]I I'm just wondering like what is your dream way for us to read this?
[15:56]I'd love to know because sometimes I think about like the way people I don't know the way people read novels or like in my in my
[16:04]Fantasy and imagination and how people experience work and I'm I'm just curious for you
[16:08]Like if you could think about think about us reading like what is your dream way for us to read this collection I?
[16:14]Think my dream ways to really take your time
[16:17]It's kind of it's easy and poetry to kind of scan around a poetry book and be like oh, I like that one and then
[16:23]Quickly try to read the rest and my my dream way is for it to sit on your nightstand or sit in your living room and to pick it up and
[16:31]To randomly read a piece and kind of sit with it. That's what I that's how I read poetry. I don't just sit down and read a book of poems
[16:37]It's kind of like
[16:39]Poetry is such boiled down storytelling. It's a lot like listening to a song or listening to a stand-up set. You're trying to tell a big story
[16:48]Really quickly and so it's hard to take that in a bunch of stories over and over and over again
[16:54]So for me, I guess that's just how I prefer to read poetry isn't really slowly and wanted a time and away from my children and
[17:04]in quiet spaces
[17:06]I
[17:07]love the stories of people who have gone into bookstores and picked it up and
[17:11]Red one piece and had never read poetry before and said oh, I love that. That's that's something I can
[17:17]Connect with and that's my that's those are some of my favorite stories and I hope that you can just let them marinate
[17:23]Hmm. Yeah, last question. Then I want to open it up to you guys to ask Kate what you want
[17:28]But I'm curious if if there's like if there are ever favorites for you in a collection if there are favorite poems and
[17:36]If there are if you could maybe share
[17:40]One with us tonight sure
[17:43]The bridesmaid speech is my favorite poem in this book
[17:47]It's one of the only poems I've written where I've cried while I've written it because I was picturing myself giving this speech
[17:53]We celebrate romantic love so much which romantic love is really great
[18:00]What we don't really have weddings for our friends
[18:03]And I love that part in a reception when the when the bridesmaid gets to stand up and pledge her
[18:09]Love to the bride. It's one of the best parts because you know what I couldn't be married without my friends
[18:16]I couldn't mother without my friends. I couldn't breathe without them
[18:19]And it's kind of a statement for that and I think our friends kind of changed throughout our lives
[18:24]The the people who are in my wedding when I was like a baby 24
[18:30]If I was having a wedding now, they wouldn't it would be a whole different group of women and I was thinking
[18:36]I wish I could give a speech now. I wish I could tell those friends now how much they mean to me and so I sat down and wrote that and
[18:44]It's been really special to see it shared and read it weddings. It's it's been wonderful. Yeah
[18:51]Any questions for a key
[18:55]My eight-year-old daughter asked me
[18:58]Oh my gosh, I love that which is that she doesn't come in prison based on some memorized
[19:04]Yeah, and she was looking to have a recommendation and I guess relatedly like how might you foster a loved and
[19:15]Shell silverstein is a huge hit in my house
[19:19]It's so
[19:21]They're so funny and kids love funny
[19:24]I will say though that most children's books are poetry even though they're not labeled as that because they there's often rhyme
[19:31]And it's also boiled down storytelling so really poetry is an all most children's literature. It's all poetry as
[19:39]For memorized you want a poetry recommendation or just how to memorize a poem
[19:47]Yeah, I think Shell Silverstein I think that would really bring the house down and with a bunch of other
[19:51]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of really good punchlines at the end that eight-year-olds will have
[20:00]Yeah.
[20:03]Yeah.
[20:04]When you're writing poetry, for your career, do you ever get lost in the rules?
[20:13]Like the guy in the diameter or whatever it is, the structure.
[20:19]Or you just sit down and it comes to you and to weigh what this particular piece is going to be.
[20:25]That's a great question.
[20:26]Yeah, it makes total sense.
[20:27]Yeah.
[20:28]I really write by ear.
[20:30]So, every poem I've ever written, I say over and over and over again, out loud in my office.
[20:36]I sound crazy.
[20:37]My husband, I'm like, are you talking to me?
[20:39]I'm like, no, get out of here.
[20:41]So, yeah, for me, it's all by ear.
[20:44]And it's kind of, it's hard in that way because so often I want to use vocabulary.
[20:50]Certain vocabulary that then just doesn't sound right.
[20:53]And so, I spend a lot of time trying to find the right word that sounds right coming out of my mouth.
[20:59]And so, that is, that is my struggle.
[21:02]Less trying to fit a certain form, but to sound like the song I'm trying to write.
[21:08]Yeah.
[21:09]Sure.
[21:10]Did you study it on a poetry in your English language?
[21:14]Yeah.
[21:15]Yeah.
[21:16]That was like a second concentration.
[21:17]Yeah, I had a really scary poetry teacher that taught me a lot.
[21:21]When my first book came out, she moderated one of my first events and I'd never been more nervous.
[21:26]I was like, but what grade do you give this?
[21:29]Yeah.
[21:30]I've been trying to impress every English teacher I've ever met.
[21:33]So, she, really, she was wonderful.
[21:35]Yeah.
[21:40]Yeah.
[21:41]So, what kind of woman has been on my nights now for the past five years?
[21:45]Yeah, exactly.
[21:46]As your dream.
[21:47]Yeah.
[21:48]Okay, great.
[21:49]MVP.
[21:50]Yeah.
[21:51]Yeah.
[21:52]And so, this will get added.
[21:53]You spoke about how going back to work was kind of this lifeline after having children.
[21:59]Yeah.
[22:00]And I've always felt that same way, like having something that's really yours.
[22:03]Yeah.
[22:04]Even when it's shared with the world and so public.
[22:07]And I'm curious how your work integrates with your family life.
[22:11]And like, if your kids read your poems before they're published or if you speak about your work with them,
[22:16]kind of what that looks like in your work life integration.
[22:19]Yeah.
[22:20]Yeah.
[22:21]My kids read Dogman.
[22:22]They don't read my poetry as much.
[22:25]They definitely thumb through the book looking for like swears and sex or, you know, like,
[22:29]though I have a teenager, they're definitely paging through it.
[22:33]Yeah.
[22:34]It's hard.
[22:36]It's, it's, in some ways it's never been easier because now my children, I have a high schooler
[22:40]and a middle schooler and then to an elementary school, but they're all in school full
[22:44]time.
[22:45]So being able to mother and write is easier because they're out of the house.
[22:51]I do try to say this at every event.
[22:53]None of my books would be possible without childcare.
[22:56]There's not a single page that'd be possible without childcare.
[22:59]So I wouldn't be here without childcare.
[23:01]It has been the single most important part of my writing process is having reliable people to take care of my kids.
[23:08]And I don't ever take that for granted.
[23:10]And so yeah, it's definitely a balance.
[23:13]But I will say when they're in school, it is, it is easier.
[23:17]But yeah, my office hours are pretty much nine to three.
[23:20]And then when they come home, I come out and it's, it's really worked out when I'm, when I'm writing.
[23:25]But then when I'm away, yeah, it takes, it takes a village.
[23:28]But yeah, I have to answer your question.
[23:30]Yeah.
[23:35]Can you talk a little bit about where you find inspiration for homes?
[23:39]There are different varies, but is it, you see an image that inspires you?
[23:43]Sure.
[23:44]You have one line ready to go or there's like an essence you're trying to capture.
[23:47]Like where does that typically come from?
[23:49]Yeah.
[23:50]The, the meat of all the poems just comes from my life, my real life.
[23:53]I'm constantly emailing myself texting myself, writing things down on pieces of paper,
[23:58]shoving it in my office door, putting it in my notes app.
[24:01]And then the construction of the pieces happens in those office hours,
[24:06]pontificating over commas, trying to do the sentence structure,
[24:10]doing the writing part, the hard part that happens in the, in my office,
[24:15]but the, the heart of it and what I'm really trying to say,
[24:18]that comes from being in the real world in my real life,
[24:22]trying to live offline, pay attention in the grocery store,
[24:26]taking in all that real life stuff.
[24:29]There's a line in here, in marriage poem that says,
[24:32]I love my life except for the noise of it.
[24:35]And I, I, I was, it happened to be walking.
[24:38]I walked my dog.
[24:39]I read, she's a really bad dog unless she gets walked in.
[24:42]I was walking my dog out in this backfield behind my house one evening.
[24:47]And it was dark out.
[24:48]It was in the winter.
[24:49]And I was walking her home and I was walking by my,
[24:52]we have a big bay window in the front of our house.
[24:55]And I looked in the window and I saw my son playing the piano and,
[24:59]and, and.
[25:00]my youngest playing magnetiles on the ground and my husband and my daughter playing cards.
[25:05]And I was looking at them and I thought, oh, they're so beautiful. I don't want to go inside.
[25:12]It's those moments that really help me. I'm like, what is that? What is it that I'm trying to say?
[25:19]And I quickly wrote down those words. And so, yeah, it's coming from those moments and then
[25:24]trying to figure it out in my office. Yeah. Thanks for the question.
[25:29]I think there was someone behind you.
[25:44]My first book came out, oh my goodness, I cried every venom, a huge cry.
[25:49]My first book came out in COVID and so I did all of my
[25:54]all of my book events on Zoom. It was really hard. And then when my second book came out,
[26:00]I got to do my first live event. I was so nervous. I was like, dry heaving in the back.
[26:05]Joanna Goddard was moderating. Where was I? I was in Brooklyn. I was like, I felt like this is the
[26:11]this is like the moment I've been waiting for my whole life. And I walked out there, oh my gosh.
[26:18]And I looked at all these women and they were just rooting for me. My friend Heather is here
[26:22]and she was sitting like this in the middle. You could just sit down so I don't cry.
[26:30]Yeah, that was one of the best moments when I got to see real women and not just a Zoom screen
[26:36]and connect with them. It's been the joy of my life. Yeah, thank you.
[26:43]Yeah, you talked about your problem graveyard. How do you know when a poem is finished?
[26:48]It's a great question. It's really hard. I'm really looking to hear, like I said,
[26:56]I'm writing by ear, so I'm really looking to hear that four-part chord and for it to feel
[27:01]done. Sometimes I don't quite hear it. There's a poem in here called, I used to text you for
[27:07]nudes, but now you know, that's not what I would never text for nudes. It says, you used to text
[27:12]me for nudes. Yeah. You used to text me for nudes, but now it's just for information for our
[27:18]taxes. Yeah. And when I wrote that poem, it's maybe one of the only times. It's a baby happened
[27:23]five or six times in my whole life where I write a whole poem and I hear the angel sing right away.
[27:30]So that was such a great moment because I was like, oh, it's finished. 99.9% of the rest of the
[27:37]time that's not happening. And it takes a lot of deliberation and saying it over and over again
[27:42]to myself until I, it feels good enough. So yeah, it's hard to know, but when I can't hear those
[27:49]chords or the notes don't sound right, I just stick it in that great yard. Yeah.
[27:54]I think we'll do maybe two more questions. Sure. Yeah. That's a great question.
[28:08]It is scary. There's that feeling when you're putting out your art. You just don't want to
[28:14]feel embarrassed and you don't want to feel cringe. And I thought that was going to go away, but it
[28:20]really doesn't. What I remind myself is that it's so much more embarrassing to get to the end of
[28:26]my life and not do anything at all. I really had to talk myself into that right at the beginning
[28:30]when I was putting out poetry online because like I said, I'd never shared literally one poem
[28:36]besides in that poetry class at college. I'd never shared one poem with one person ever before.
[28:42]And I kept saying to myself, is it worth feeling embarrassed? It could be really bad. It certainly
[28:49]has been bad before putting out other kinds of work, but not doing it. It's just so much sadder.
[28:57]And so yeah, there's so much fear. But practicing that muscle a failure over and over again,
[29:06]does really help. Writing a whole novel for four years and then not going anywhere. That really
[29:10]helps because you get used to failing. I keep saying in January, I get to put my writing hat back
[29:17]on and start writing again. And I'm so looking forward to that failing part. That's a really fun
[29:22]part because there's freedom in that. There's freedom in just letting that go and it might be
[29:28]really bad. But it's so much better than sitting here thinking, I hope it's not bad. So yeah,
[29:34]absolutely it's there. But it's just most important. One of the most important things to practice.
[29:42]What was that poem that you posted, the first poem that you ever shared? And did it end up in your
[29:46]first collection? Yeah. It was called On the Evening of Her Birth. I was in a Starbucks
[29:53]working and across the street. One of my best friends was giving birth to her first daughter,
[29:58]or her third daughter. Sorry.
[30:00]across the street and I wrote that for her and I was planning to send it to her and I thought
[30:04]what if I sent it to everyone and what great, yeah.
[30:10]One more question.
[30:12]Sure.
[30:13]Oh, more of a request, maybe.
[30:16]Sure.
[30:17]No pressure.
[30:18]Would you like to be able to put it there?
[30:21]Oh, sure.
[30:22]Sure.
[30:23]Okay.
[30:25]I have a bunch of eye-defeating suggestions.
[30:31]Oh, gosh.
[30:32]I don't know where anything is.
[30:34]Every time I'm like, maybe a table of contents and they're like, no.
[30:37]I'm going to skip that.
[30:38]I don't think people made it and I'm like, but I need it.
[30:42]I need it.
[30:43]This is called The Bridesmaid's Speech.
[30:47]I have known her all her life and by that I mean I've seen her in the impossible light of
[30:53]her childhood.
[30:54]The spaces in between.
[30:56]The car on the way to the birthday dinner, the moment before the photograph.
[31:01]I have stood outside the bathroom stall, held tight while her shoulder shook with sorrow.
[31:07]I've watched joy arrive, midnight and unexpected, repeated stories until they were my own.
[31:14]It's true there is a cost to this devotion, but I'll let you in on a little secret.
[31:20]There is very little women choose to keep from one another.
[31:24]How lucky are we to know a love like this?
[31:27]Thank you so much.
[31:34]Thank you all so much for being here.
[31:36]Also, Rebecca has a lot coming out in March.
[31:39]Please buy it.
[31:40]She's a brilliant writer.
[31:41]I find so much.
[31:42]Her books are also poetry.
[31:43]I find inspiration from a lot of poets, Sharon Olds, Wanda Coleman, Margaret Atwood, but I also
[31:49]find so much inspiration and novels.
[31:51]Fiction is what I read the most.
[31:53]And right is like Rebecca, give me so much content because they're brave and take risks
[31:58]and use great vocabulary.
[31:59]And so pre-order the book for two.
[32:02]Thank you all.
[32:03]Thank you all.
[32:04]Thank you.
[32:05]You have had a chance to buy them and you'd like to be in both of their books up here.
[32:12]And if you want to kind of line up along this walkway, I'm sure they'll be happy to
[32:17]sign.
[32:18]Thank you guys.